My Blog

  (MY DEEP APPRECIATION TO RUBY MAE FOR THIS VALUED WRITE-UP)

Only this month, December, I met Joanna Camilon, an old college schoolmate. There is really nothing extra special about this meeting, if not for the fact that Jo and I are not really close back in the college days in UP Tacloban.

In fact, our friendship was just more of occasional smiles, kwentuhan, nods (when we see each other in school gatherings), simple hi and hello.  we were really not into the same group. Jo is the holy kind while I walked on the wild side of the road. Although extreme, I believed then that she is such a good friend, just that we were really not given the privilege of being able to sit down and talk things out…

The funny thing is, she is also one of those friends whose numbers I do not keep. Although we are Friendster and Yahoo friends, we never get around to asking our mobile phone numbers, we were just contented with simply sending emails and exchanging reminders and information via the internet through our Yahoogroups account, and even then, these would usually be a group message or a group email.

So, astonishingly, I was surprised when she texted me, early this December, asking if I can meet her cause she was within my turf, (Taguig-Bicutan area), and she got nowhere else to go and it was just a few hours after landing Manila. She said she really doesn’t have any idea where to go cause most of her UP Tacloban friends are already married and busy with their families and with their careers. She said she was to have a one-day seminar here in the big city and she was housed daw in TESDA, the building near our school, TUP Taguig.

Now, what took me by surprise was she practically asked me if she can have dinner in my house.  well, food is not a question for me, it was the very prompt and daring, although flippantly stated, request from her that stunned me! This was not the old Joanna I used to see, meekly and shyly smiling at me, rarely uttering a word! This Joanna is one heck of an actualized, single woman…who is LOST! hahaha!

No doubt, I will be willing to feed whoever would come knocking on my door, if need be, the astonishment came from the fact that, this was the Joanna Camilon, the very shy Joanna! And then I asked, why me? I barely go out with her when we were in college (if not for the occasional batch meetings, parties, activities, etc., we all attend back then…)for I believed that she is not into my ways “ I have always been galawgaw, rowdy, noisy and funny while she was my extreme opposite, she was the spick and span, downright mahinhin and conservative gal, boys would love to run after even up to now."

Now I wonder why the sudden change of heart? Although, the thought of being able to get to know her better at last this time around gives much joy to my heart for I believe that we could be great friends back then had we just been given the chance to really sit down and talk…thresh things out. I could have inculcated in her my “no-stage-fright” persona while she would in turn teach me the basic rudiments of modesty and propriety!

And since I get to read her text late that night already, I promised I’d see her the following night. But then my schedule was so erratic, with the many deadlines to meet, I wasn’t able to meet her again on the time I set, so, to make amends, I went out of my way Tuesday morning, to see her, I just gave my students a series of seatwork and writing activities then I went to see her.

What did I then found out? Why was she suddenly turning to me? Simple. We both realized, while talking and exchanging happy memories in UP Tacloban, that the one thing we trade off as we grow older, become more actualized in our fields of specialization and weave new dreams with new partners, families and friends, is the great relationships that we built when we were still on the process of working for the realization of our dreams before.

Admittedly, we both realize that even if we had live separate lives back then, our single-blessedness forced us to unite! hahaha! Kami kami naman la daw kay sira sira naman san yana nga panahon!As Jo pointed out, "Kay sira man tanan wara na man time, kay adton man san ira tagsa tagsa nga pamilya ngan trabaho, salit kit nga waray pa asawa, asya na la an magbuburunyog…busy naman gud sira tanan. San hadto kadadali la sira ipatawag kay damo pa man kam nga waray asawa, ta yana, ak na la ada adton waray pamilya!"

We actually started laughing with this observation, for it was really a glaring proof that we are thirty and single…still! We had a grand time talking, catching up. She was telling me funny stuff about her accounting friends in college, her job, her reason why the single-blessedness and her plans for the future.

Me, on the other hand, gave her my unvoiced thoughts about her in college, telling her that we could have been good friends back then if not for the different crowd we moved in, in UP Tacloban; also, my recent learnings here in this big city, my foibles and conquests in being a teacher, my hopes and my dreams like her. And of course, we also talked about WHY we are still unattached at 30 and we both had a grand time laughing as we point out and rationalize our nice “predicament”, which we had unanimously agreed as a “personal decision”!

Ahh Jo! I wish I could have known you long before..but hey! Its never too late.  you said we’d go to Catarman this Christmas break to visit Rico Leo…hmm..and you were actually forcing me to host sort of a reunion before the year ends…hmm…I got your number already girl, so I guess I’ll see you!

And without us knowing it, she was off to airport again. So I helped her find a cab and bid her goodbye, with the promise to see her when I go home this Christmas.

On my way back, I was in deep thoughts.  I realized one thing: That when a crowd grows thinner and when you don’t join the leaving crowd, you’ll be left all alone in search of those individuals who like you, didn’t vanish with everyone else. And when you find these very few people who stood on the same plane you were standing on, you realized that much have been lost in the midst of a thick crowd, when all you could have done is just blindly thrust your hand out to them and pick it up from there, cause if you fail to do this, you would be missing out on one of life’s greatest gifts - - FRIENDSHIP!

So, hin-o pa an single dida? Upod kam sa am!